Satellite TV broadcasting employs a satellite in geosynchronous orbit to broadcast TV signals to numerous antennae located across vast areas. The receiving antennae are almost always disk antennae, and for more northerly locations an weaker signals, these are commonly four, six, eight or more feet in diameter. These relatively large disk antennae are usually located outdoors. For home satellite TV reception, the disk antenna is usually permanently positioned on a concrete pad in the yard or ocassionally on the roof of the home. In the usual case, it is remote from the room where the receiver is located and a cable array is employed between the tuner/receiver and the antenna. Commonly, the disk is rotatable so as to be aimed toward different satellites and, because of the differing nature of the signal's broadcast from such satellites, it is also common to control other components of the antenna so as to be able to tune into different channels of satellite broadcasts. Thus, it is common to provide at least one and often two coaxial cables for connecting the received TV broadcast signals from the antenna to the tuner/receiver (usually located together indoors) while at the same time providing a number of control and power connections to the antenna apparatus for remote control of the antenna from the tuner/receiver.
To make running of the various cables easier, it is common to form them into a ribbon array with the cables side by side and interconnected by a common outer insulating plastic or rubber layer. And, like other ribbon cable arrays, individual cables may be split apart at the ends of the long arrays for connecting to the tuner/receiver or to intermediate lengths of individual cables which allow such connection.
The standard practice has been to run such cable arrays directly to the room in which the user wishes to have the tuner/receiver by cutting holes in walls and fishing the cable array through the holes. This often leaves unsightly holes and air leaks. The cables are sometimes subject to wear of harm by being exposed and/or by being abraded against the sides of a wall opening.